What's your position on musicians or any celebrity endorsing
and selling consumer products and services? To some, this
practice is taboo, akin to selling your soul. To others,
this is sometimes a survival and often lucrative
proposition. This topic has been, and surely will continue
to be debated by purists and capitalists as long as commerce
exists.

The argument is that musicians are watering down the value
of their artistic integrity by getting paid to hawk Doritos
or McDonalds for example. Does their credibility as
songwriters and players suddenly diminish because they're
doing a commercial for AT&T? Or are they simply padding
their pocketbooks and gaining additional exposure while
affording themselves the opportunity to continue to make the
very music that people love?

Read the complete article "Sell Your Soul To Rock-n-Roll?"
at MusicDish Network member site IndieFan.com, a community
of independent bands, labels and fans
http://www.indiefan.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=409_________________A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"

Well, consider the view of Charles Ives' father. He said (paraphrase), "When the music makes the money, it ruins the music and it ruins the man". One could say that when a composer sells his music, he is selling his soul. When a composer endorses a product, he isn't selling his soul, he's just cashing in on the value of his name.Last edited by mosc on Mon Dec 29, 2003 11:33 am; edited 1 time in total

The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. - W. Shakespeare

If you have a reputation, I don't see anything wrong with using it to generate some income. That's different from selling out your music, which is making music you wouldn't otherwise do, just because you think it has a better chance of selling. However, even that can be justified if you need to put food on the table. But that's music as a business, not as an artistic pursuit.

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